Butter Chicken from Trader Joe’s is Recalled

Canadian and U.S. health officials said more than 4,865 pounds of butter chicken and rice that was headed for Trader Joe’s stores had been recalled for possible contamination of Listeria.

The Food Safety and Inspection branch of the U.S. Agriculture Department has started to alert consumers of the new recall that was being conducted by Aliya’s Foods and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Aliya’s is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta. The recall includes rice products and frozen butter chicken that had been imported from Canada.

The Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety service will verify all the U.S. companies that were sent shipments of the products that were recalled and confirm they were notified to remove them from their shelves.

The recall includes boxes of 12.5 ounces of Butter Chicken with Basmati Rice with product code number 2012-10-31 and a 30512 lot code. The chicken recalled is considered to be ready-to-eat and can be subject to testing of pathogens since there is zero tolerance for pathogens by the Food Safety Service in foods deemed ready-to-eat, at the time they are produced, even if the food in question much be heated prior to serving.

At a distribution center, 19 cartons had been held, while 240 cartons had been already distributed to different retail stores of Trader Joe’s. Those Trader Joe’s stores have already been contacted and told to pull the items from their shelves.

Health officials were concerned that consumers might purchase or receive the product but have not heard about the recall. The FDA announced that the products might have been shipped to 14 stores, all located on the east coast of the U.S